Neuroplasticity - Bryant McGill

# Neuroplasticity **Entity class:** Concept or analytic term **Domain:** Neuroscience / Learning / Development **Doc Type:** Canonical Technical Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Neuroplasticity** is the capacity of neural systems to change structure, function or connectivity through development, learning, experience, injury and adaptation. Plasticity is not unlimited malleability. Its effects depend on developmental timing, prior state, task, intensity, repetition, biological constraints and the surrounding environment. ## Corpus Context [[wiki/Stress Inoculation|Stress Inoculation]] is one bounded example of experience altering later regulation and cognitive control. [[wiki/Developmental Reconstruction|Developmental Reconstruction]] relies on a much stronger fictional assumption: that selected developmental inputs could be replayed with enough precision to recover source-relevant cognitive organization. ## Key Insight **Experience can alter architecture, which is why architecture and accretion cannot remain fully separate.** ## See Also [[wiki/Architecture vs Accretion|Architecture vs Accretion]] · [[wiki/Developmental Priors|Developmental Priors]] · [[wiki/Genotype–Environment Reconstruction|Genotype–Environment Reconstruction]] ## Relationships  This entry's documented connections are expressed in its definition and related-work routes, with provenance retained in the source-linked material.  ## Research Inferences  These entries translate the forward-looking register in [[research/Research Inferences|Research Inferences]] into ordinary wiki prose. The tier labels apply to the inference, not automatically to every factual anchor inside it. The interpretive frame comes from [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]]. Collection route: [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]]. - **INF-0075 — Plausible.** Patients using digital bridges recover function that persists when the device is off, meaning the machine taught the nervous system. A device that induces durable biological change is not a prosthesis but a training instrument, and training instruments generalize far beyond injury.  ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "In essence this means that the high degree of brain plasticity normally evident only during early development can now be made to occur throughout the life span. This is undoubtedly a game changer in the brain sciences. Imagine being able to restore the plasticity of neurons in the language centers of your brain, enabling you to learn any and all languages effortlessly and at a rapid pace. The restoration of neuronal plasticity would also have important clinical implications since unlike in the mature brain, connections in the developing brain are capable of sprouting (i.e. new growth). For this reason, this technology could provide a powerful means to combat loss of neuronal connections, including those resulting from brain injury as well as various disease states." > **— Leo M. Chalupa**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Restored Brain Plasticity Could Make Learning Effortless by Leo M. Chalupa|Restored Brain Plasticity Could Make Learning Effortless by Leo M. Chalupa]] > "Given that one in five Americans is now taking a mind-altering drug(s), the experiment continues and accelerates. Never mind fields like optogenetics, which alter and reconnect our brains, thoughts, memories, fears using light stimuli projected inside the brain. Eventual implants will radically change brain design, inputs, and outputs. Having a baseline, a good paleoneurological history of brain design, for ourselves and many other basic species, may teach us a lot about what our brains were, where they came from, but even more important, what they are becoming. I bet this is a challenge Tilly Edinger would have relished." > **— Juan Enriquez**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Brain Implants Will Change What Our Brains Are Becoming by Juan Enriquez|Brain Implants Will Change What Our Brains Are Becoming by Juan Enriquez]] > "I've argued elsewhere that the neural code may turn out to be so complex that it will never be fully deciphered. But 60 years ago, some biologists feared the genetic code was too complex to crack. Then in 1953 Crick and Watson unraveled the structure of DNA, and researchers quickly established that the double helix mediates an astonishingly simple genetic code governing the heredity of all organisms. Science's success in deciphering the genetic code, which has culminated in the Human Genome Project, has been widely acclaimed — and with good reason, because knowledge of our genetic makeup could allow us to reshape our innate nature. A solution to the neural code could give us much greater, more direct control over ourselves than mere genetic manipulation." > **— John Horgan**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Solving the Neural Code Could Give Us Direct Control Over Ourselves by John Horgan|Solving the Neural Code Could Give Us Direct Control Over Ourselves by John Horgan]]